One of the fundamental problems of the safety-related functions of driver assistance systems is verifying the sensor data received from the various connected sensors. To this end, the sensors are frequently designed to be redundant, in order to be able to establish the plausibility of the sensor data.
The particular problem of e.g. a lane detection system in a vehicle is detecting when the calculation results of certain calculation steps can no longer be trusted due to unreliable sensor data. In such a case, the respective safety-related functionality is then disabled. In the case of a lane detection system the lane detection is disabled, in order to exclude the possibility of accidents caused by faulty lane detection. Traditionally, the sensors on safety-related systems such as lane detection systems are therefore designed to be redundant. A module constantly monitors the results and/or sensor data of two sensors. If these fail simultaneously and/or in extremely similar ways, the relevant system remains activated. If the results and/or sensor data fail at different times, the functionality of the lane detection is disabled. However, the redundant design requires high installation costs and is therefore technically complex.
A central control unit for a plurality of assistance systems provided in a motor vehicle is known from WO 2009/071345 A1, which, in order to also be able to make safety-related interventions in the driving dynamics, comprises a safety control unit which checks non-redundant sensor information of the individual assistance systems by means of analytical redundancies of different information contained by the central control unit, in order to be able to guarantee the plausibility of the sensor data.